Quad Cities

6-18-12. I hope all your Father’s out there had a great Father’s Day. We did. Walt’s daughter, Berta, came out from Davenport and took us to the restaurant in Muscatine for Father’s Day brunch. The restaurant was packed full the whole time we were there, constantly coming and going. We usually just go on in and seat ourselves because they know we want to sit in the section Lisa’s working in, but yesterday we had to wait in line to be seated. Lisa was really sick and couldn’t work so we didn’t get to see her. I think she must have a bad case of sinus infection, a lot of people are having troubles from the air quality this year. Grandson, Jared, and wife, Carrie, have both been sick. He has had bronchitis and she has had strep throat. The last I heard everyone was better. I hope we get to see Lisa when we go to Muscatine this week before I’m gonna take some more of her things to her. I’m getting things ready to take to auction, to Goodwill and anyone else I can pawn it off on. Ha. I’m getting tired of not being able to find anything when I want it and have to look for it. Sometimes it’s easier to just buy another one of whatever it is. So that’s part of the reason I have so much “stuff” I don’t know what to do with. We’ve got a real small car so can’t have much at a time.

People are going around burglarizing houses again especially people who live out where no one’s around them. They knock on the door and if no one answers they force the door open and mostly take jewelry and cash, like those people did at Wayne Henderson’s house in Independence, Missouri. I’m going to put another lock on this door because they do it when people are home too. I think Lisa and Joe were home when they stole his car out of the garage. I don’t think they’ve stole anything here yet, but every year after the campground opens somebody come down here and breaks our birdfeeders and I was upstairs one day and looked out and there were rocks on the roof of the porch. Quite a few. I know the animals didn’t take them up there. They get the suet cages hanging from long hooks in the tree and take the suet cakes out of the cages and throw it away then hid the cages under the flowers by the big feeder. They’ve trampled the flowers down until there is just a few standing up. This year abut two weeks after the campground opened the hummers were back so we filled up two new feeders and hung out there. The next morning one was on the ground and one on the big feeder and both had the perches broke off so we put another new one out there and the same thing happened to it. We started bringing them in at night. I stay up late and turn the porch light on and look out every few minutes and don’t see anything then last night I came into the bedroom around 1:00 a.m. and Walt woke up and said he forgot to bring the hummingbird feeder in and went to get it and said, “It’s too late, they already got it.” The same thing – the perches broke off. It’s the kind that has the ring that goes all the way around for them to sit on and the whole ring will be laying on the ground and broke off of the feeder. I guess they wait to see me turn the light off in the kitchen. I guess I should try to trick them and turn it off and stay by the door and watch. We’ve tried sitting on the porch in the dark with a bow and arrow, but the coons want to join us and won’t leave. Anyway, it’s really getting frusterating and who would want to stay up all night to do that and why?? We’re sure in our minds that someone was cutting Dude (the cat’s) legs and cutting the horses legs and the little rabbit had half of its face sliced off and still alive and a little possum that came here to eat had been sliced that way, but not as bad and it healed and there’s been so many odd things happening around here. I sure wish we could catch them at it. I’m going to show those feeders to my landlord today and tell him what all is going on. We hear all kinds of noises around here at night, but never find out what caused it. It’s just weird. The birdfeeders and suet are never bothered during the winter.

Berta told us yesterday she will take us to Ava, MO. whenever we want to go and again next year for the class reunion. So I’m really excited about that. I talked to Kay (Day) Applegate last night in VanCouver, Washington and told her about the reunion and she said she has no desire to ever go back down there and that she doesn’t know anybody there anymore. I think she might still have a few cousins there, but maybe not.

I talked to Frank Dee Allison and he said his daughter, Cheryl, and Bill White sent him a Father’s Day card and said they had ordered a subscription to the Douglas County Herald for him for Father’s Day. He was glad to hear that and I was too.

Well this is Monday and as usual we’re going to Tipton this afternoon. It’s supposed to be in the mid-nineties with heat index up to 103 degrees, so I hope we get up there before it gets too bad. Thank goodness for air conditioning in cars. I remember when there wasn’t and you had to ride with the windows down and the hot air blowing in and how good it felt going through shaded areas. I wouldn’t want to go back to those “Good Old Days.” Take care of yourselves and bye, bye for now.